Confessions Of A Mystic

Just as one cannot adequately describe in words the juicy sweetness of a ripe pear or the shocking depth of the color indigo, so too it seems impossible to relay in words the ecstasy of divine union.

While I have been blessed with intermittent perception of divine union, these evolving enlightenment experiences have been more than enough to fuel a devoted inner journey. For years, I have engaged in intense sadhana, meditating, studying and traveling with an enlightened master who often reminds us his role is not to put out fires, but to start them. I have offered every part of myself without reserve (or so I believed) into the fire for burning.

Throughout this journey, I have yearned and prayed that my individual identity would be dissolved so completely that I might merge into permanent oneness with the Beloved. I have awaited the day when the Divine would take from me that which is not mine - this silly charade of an ego that keeps this great lover from her Beloved.

I must now confess. I never thought much about how this dissolution would look or feel, nor did it really matter. I suppose I assumed the intense but generally "manageable" dismantling I'd experienced over many years would simply come to a happy completion. How nice. My Beloved would simply say, "Come, my dear, you've been away for far too long", and sacred lovers would join in ecstatic embrace. It would be glorious and sweet...rapturous but gentle.

I did not realize the hard, irregular edges of my heart would first need to be shattered. That the chards would pierce me in ways I thought not possible to be penetrated. That the shadow realm would unleash its ghosts, requiring all aspects of the hidden self to be reckoned with and reclaimed. I did not know that the ego, like a vicious and wounded animal, would take hostage the internal witness, co-opting perception into the unbearable pain of its own dying. I did not know this. Thank you, mercy, I did not know this, but nor would it have mattered.

In this painful but potent process, everything has been stripped away - every belief, everything I thought I knew, every comforting sense of who "I" am and my place in the world. All gone. All concepts like quicksand under my feet. With no place to stand, I have prayed, "Devastate me if you must. Erase this ignorance until there is no "me" left, but only You. My heart feels broken beyond any hope of repair...so please don't stop until the job is done."

Into this naked and undefended heart-space marched a parade of disgusting and shameful qualities out the shadow. One by one these shadow aspects were received, first with resistance, anger, and argument. Then with humiliation, resignation. And finally, as all resistance crumbled, with acceptance and forgiveness. I am That. As the parade marched on it became almost freakishly humorous. The full range of misfits and derelicts in my psyche, and my insane resistance to them, would have been hilariously absurd had it not been so depressing to my ego. Ok, I get it, I'm all That.

In my last post, I shared much of this process in a very raw and tender way, but what followed in these last weeks was something new emerged. After reclaiming these shadow qualities came a phase of deep somatic reckoning. Visceral emotional states defying description moved in waves through my being. With no external provocation arose feelings of despair, depression, death. My teacher, Dattatreya Siva Baba, would continually ask, "Why are you so attached to your mind? You keep acting as if these experiences are you."

Even from within this terrible nightmare, I knew my identification with the experience was a fallacy. Of course, I'd been trained to cultivate meditative states of witnessing attention for over a decade. But I'd never been asked to die while doing it. How to relax? How to resurrect the witness while at the same time being crucified? The ego was experiencing such a radical and vicious dissolution that it was lashing out violently for its survival. "I" was consumed by the experience, identifying with the agony as everything I once called "me" evaporated into mist.

I prayed for grace. Grace responded. I was asked simply to see and feel 'What Is'. Be fully attentive to the moment. I was being taught deeper Presence by virtue of these most excruciating experiences. The ravaging was so complete that no possibility remained but abject humility. We all want to be special, but we are neither more nor less special than anyone else. We are only witness to 'What Is' in every moment.

Resisting the urge to distract myself or push away the experience, I acquiesced. First subtly and then more fully, I chose to stay present, to meet even the darkest moment with undefended awareness. I will see and feel 'What Is' in all its nakedness. No matter how heinous or heartbreaking, I will bear witness.

With this choice came a deep and undeniable...love. It was a startling and expansive revelation: Presence is love. Being fully available to 'What Is', however terrifying or sublime, is love.

With deep humility, I realized how limited my love has been. Confined and conscripted to the narrow set of ways I've felt comfortable offering it. Often subconsciously resisting or contorting 'What Is', rather than meeting it face to face, I have not fully loved. While many would say I have loved generously and well, the love of Presence was something altogether different - vast, unconditioned, infinitely capable and merciful. And existing right now.

By meeting this death with Presence, agreeing not to run or hide or change anything, choosing to stay right there as long as required - a day, a year, a decade, a lifetime - Grace was present. My Beloved was there. Waiting.

There was, after all, only One of us.

What It Means To Delete Everything And Start Over

Today's post is a personal journey. I haven't written in several weeks as I've been in a terrible state - lost, confused, despairing. Raw and vulnerable. Shattered. My only small comfort has been knowing this is a well-worn path. Many mystics have written about the Dark Night of the Soul, the narrow passage tread by those seeking freedom and union with the Divine.

I debated whether to write this post, questioning what value I could really offer from a place of such agony and confusion? Yet, some internal voice prodded me forward. Share the process, share the experience...

These last months have taken me into a depth of spiritual despair previously unimaginable. The experience has been a ruthless stripping away of my false, idealized sense of self. Having studied with a spiritual master for many years, this process is not new, of course...but it has never been this ruthless. This has taken me to ground zero - a massive deconstruction of the remaining image of who "I" am. It has mercilessly dissolved my most cherished beliefs, and shattered every assumption about what I thought was true.

The truth is, no matter how I attempt to project some virtuous image, the conflict of this world is a direct reflection of the qualities within me. One by one, in excruciating succession, these qualities have been paraded out of their safe hiding places -- during interactions with others, in discussions with my teacher, in meditations and dreams -- as if the doors to my inner shadow world have been blown open and all the demons released. I am judgmental and self-righteous. I am petty, jealous and angry. I am all these ugly qualities and many more. One by one, I have resisted, struggled, defended and finally confessed "Yes, I am That," reluctantly finding a place at the table for each of these haggard visitors. "Here you are, my dear, you are no longer excluded but invited as my beloved guest - please come home."

And while perhaps it sounds like a liberating process to face ones demons and invite them back into the heart, each step has been death. My idealized identity, the safe picture of "self" which has shielded me from these shameful aspects, is crumbling into nothingness. There is nothing to hold onto. There is no ground to stand upon. I am DYING. And it is terrifying.

Despite the pain and despair, I have tried to stay alert, watchful. I want to find out what this dying is. I have discovered an enormous burden of sorrow and suffering within me. I want to know if I can be free from this false self and from this sorrow.

As I have hurtled toward oblivion, it has felt like my skin is being pealed off, followed by muscle and tendon and bone until there is nothing left. Everything must die this inevitable death. What is Truth? How can one know the answer unless everything is stripped away? Every veil, every gauze of perception, every conditioned belief.

"Delete everything and start over," suggested a good friend. All my well worn beliefs? Piles of crap. Delete. Everything I thought I knew? Bullshit. Delete. My personality? A bunch of absurd story lines. I have slowly been deleting everything and starting over.

Well, nearly everything...everything except two of my most sacred attachments, my deepest heart longings -- seeking enlightenment (striving for some great liberation), and merging with God (transcending this mortal frame and experiencing union with the Divine). Since childhood these spiritual notions have been the bedrock of my belief. But now I see that, in my seeking, I can never arrive. In the Becoming, I can never Be. These beliefs must go too. My body, mind and soul are wracked with fear and grief. What will remain after my most cherished yearnings are cast away? My chest feels crushed with the pressure of a thousand boulders resting upon it. But in the completeness of my despair, I give up these too. I lay these most sacred treasures down and walk away from them.

Now I sit without God, without enlightenment. I feel dead inside. It is dark here. I wish I could say there is no pain left, but that would be a deception, a denial of What Is. What Is? A soft breeze. The sound of water running, and a helicopter thumping overhead. Warm mid-day sun on my skin. Lots of empty space inside -- a ravaged field with fertile ground, but nothing growing and no delusions about whether it should or ever will.

I am completely and utterly alone. Stripped naked. Raw. Seeing Reality, perhaps for the first time.

Oddly enough, I am reminded of the movie V for Vendetta, in which V tortures Edie mercilessly until she realizes that everything can be stripped away from her except her capacity to love. "Every inch of me will perish - every inch except one...it is small and it is fragile, but it is the only thing in the world worth having." In this realization, she becomes fearless and free.